CANBERRA, Oct. 6 (Xinhua) -- The Australian government will fast-track personal income tax cuts as part of its COVID-19 response in Tuesday's budget to help lead to spending and kickstart the economy.
The tax cuts planned for 2022 will be brought forward and backdated to July this year, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's report.
Under the plan, Australians who earn up to 90,000 Australian dollars (64,641 U.S. dollars) per year will take home an extra 1,080 Australian dollars (775.7 U.S. dollars) this financial year. Workers who earn more than 90,000 Australian dollars will pocket an extra 2,565 Australian dollars (1842.3 U.S. dollars).
The government hopes the cuts will inject 12 billion Australian dollars (8.6 billion U.S. dollars) into Australia's economy, accelerating the country's economic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.
The cuts will be detailed in the federal budget for financial year 2020/21, which Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will hand down on Tuesday night.
It is expected to be one of the most consequential Australian budgets since World War II with the government committing to unprecedented spending to take the country out of its first recession since 1991 and drive unemployment back to pre-pandemic levels despite high levels of debt.
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Frydenberg said that the priority of the budget is jobs, citing data that 10 percent of Australia's workforce have either lost their jobs or had their working hours reduced to zero in 2020.
"In tonight's budget, I will lay out our economic recovery plan to rebuild the Australian economy and secure Australia's future," he said.
"Our plan will create jobs. This is all about jobs. It's all about helping those who are out of a job get into a job. It's all about helping those that are in work, stay in work.
"The history of previous recessions in Australia, in the 1980s and the 1990s, is that it's taken a long time to get unemployment back to where it was. In the 1980s it took six years to get unemployment back below six percent from where it started. In the 1990s, it took 10 years."
"We want to move faster than that, and importantly we want to help women and young people get back to work."
On Monday, Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, said they had a track record of "always looking for opportunities to lower the tax burden on hard working families."
"Personal income tax cuts put more money into workers' pockets. They boost take home pay for hard working Australians. So it is always something that we are committed to pursuing where that makes sense," he said.
In addition to tax cuts, infrastructure spending and support for employers will be in Tuesday night's budget, which is also expected to include a historic level of health funding. Enditem
